Wow, on the eve of receiving my cable cards and install from Time Warner in Socal, I am still a bit nervous. I hope I don't need to call upon this community's vast experience in getting my box to work with the cards.

P.S. richsadams - I stayed in Lake Oswego for about a week during the primary season of the campaign. Beautiful little community

99% of the time there are no problems. Been through it plenty of times and nary a glitch. People that have problems often find their way here...people that are happy generally don't rush to post positive experiences.

Yep, we really like it here...even when it's snowing up a storm like it did yesterday. (Although it took my wife 3 hours to drive 20 miles so she might not agree with that last bit. ) Welcome back any time and keep us posted on how things go.

Okay one other question, the tivo hd xl comes loaded with version 9.4 of the software. Now I have only had my tivo hooked up and configured, minus the cable cards, for a few hours. My fear is that all the guides say to let the software update as much as possible before the cards arrive.

So my question is, if the tivo doesn't update its software beyond the version that came out of the box, will I still be able to configure the cable cards tomorrow? I have read all about how to manually connect and I understand that it still either may or may not connect between now and my appointment tomorrow. Just want to know if this may be a possible issue when the cable tech comes tomorrow.

So my question is, if the tivo doesn't update its software beyond the version that came out of the box, will I still be able to configure the cable cards tomorrow? I have read all about how to manually connect and I understand that it still either may or may not connect between now and my appointment tomorrow. Just want to know if this may be a possible issue when the cable tech comes tomorrow.

You probably wouldn't have any issues installing cable cards with the older version. However an update may have already been downloaded. Have a look and see. Once the download has completed you will see "Pending restart" listed in the “Last Status” line on the Phone & Network Screen or on the System Information screen. TiVo will automatically install the upgrade at 2 a.m. your time. However you can reboot it (unplug it, wait about 10 seconds for the hard drive to spin down and plug it back in) and it will install the update immediately. Since you don't have 10 posts you won't see my text links to the screen shots, but here they are so you can copy and paste them into your browser (I know, stupid rule) ...

If "Pending Restart" doesn't appear you can force an update. Go to Messages & Settings->Settings->Phone & Network->Connect now. If it downloads an update the loading process will usually take a while (15 minutes or more sometimes). If it doesn't download the update try connecting again a few times. Eventually the update should download. Again, once you see "Pending Restart" on one of the screens mentioned above, you can power cycle TiVo and it will automatically update. But if it doesn't update, it shouldn't be a problem.

If "Pending Restart" doesn't appear you can force an update. Go to Messages & Settings->Settings->Phone & Network->Connect now. If it downloads an update the loading process will usually take a while (15 minutes or more sometimes). If it doesn't download the update try connecting again a few times. Eventually the update should download. Again, once you see "Pending Restart" on one of the screens mentioned above, you can power cycle TiVo and it will automatically update. But if it doesn't update, it shouldn't be a problem.

Enjoy!

Just to chime in, I did have to do the "Connect Now" option a few times before it finally downloaded the version 11 software update. I made sure that was done before they showed up with the cable cards.

(not that it did much good in my case but I'm sure you'll have better luck)

Hey thanks guys I am going to try all that you have suggested, starting with having just done a connection as we speak. I am just trying to get everything perfect before my time warner tech gets here tomorrow. I have had about a 75-25 success rate with time warner in the area of service out here. Usually, well more often than not the techs i have had come have been pretty smart folks. So I will cross my fingers for an additional time.

I am sure Rich that I will hit that minimum 10 posts soon enough. In the interim, I just found out that my Mom also purchased me a year's service for my box. Problem was, she actually created an account and activated it. Now I have to wait for her to find her account info as I need it to set up the netflix and amazon unbox stuff. It was either that or cancel it and then re-set it under my account, which seemed like a pain.

Apparently they don't have any type of mechanism for transferring her account or her device to my account.

EDIT: Well, she found her info and I was at least able to change it over to my info so I can take care of any issues that crop up with this device. I turned the TV on this morning and everything seems to be great now, I have officially started the 2 hour window of waiting for the tech.

Well I am hesitant to declare victory, but the contractor (not a Time Warner Tech) came out and had 6 M cards. He only used one and knew what he was doing. He said that pretty much all of his jobs from Time Warner out here involved installing cable cards.

He inserted the card called up and everything appears to be working. He said that out here as long as the thing is handled properly during the card installation it should always be that easy. Well we shall see, but for now I am happy. He didn't know anything about SDV tuners and obviously didn't have one. I shall have to see if there are any SDV channels out here yet. If so the website claims I can actually just go down the road to the store and get one directly from Time Warner.

Well I am hesitant to declare victory, but the contractor (not a Time Warner Tech) came out and had 6 M cards. He only used one and knew what he was doing. He said that pretty much all of his jobs from Time Warner out here involved installing cable cards.

Excellent news! Thanks for reporting back...a lot of folks just disappear when there aren't any issues. The tech is correct, if things are good now, there's no reason to think that will change going forward. Also if SDV was being employed in your area he would almost certainly be aware of it.

Hi, first time posting in a long while. Bought a Tivo HD for switching back to cable from DirecTV, and instillation was today (TWC, Los Angeles). The technician was only given one M card, it didn't work when installed, and he said he couldn't get any more today. Trying again tomorrow...

Hi, first time posting in a long while. Bought a Tivo HD for switching back to cable from DirecTV, and instillation was today (TWC, Los Angeles). The technician was only given one M card, it didn't work when installed, and he said he couldn't get any more today. Trying again tomorrow...

Welcome back! More often than not cable cards will be fine, but there are plenty of stories here and on other forums about techs having to go through as many as a dozen cable cards before finding one that works. Hopefully the tech will bring a handful of them when he or she returns.

Welcome back! More often than not cable cards will be fine, but there are plenty of stories here and on other forums about techs having to go through as many as a dozen cable cards before finding one that works. Hopefully the tech will bring a handful of them when he or she returns.

Gah, I sure hope so. I should have read this first and asked the operator to be sure the tech had multiple. Like hengst2404's experience, the technician was a contractor, not an official Time Warner installer. He seemed pretty annoyed with the office for only sending him one, and he said that he thought it wouldn't work.

Unfortunately, this will be our third instillation appointment--Monday they were about to come when they found out I hadn't set up the TiVo yet, and the guy refused to come out and wait while my wife set it up (she took off Monday for that and the phone). I took off from work this afternoon to get this done, and really frustrated it was for naught. I told them there was no way my wife and I were using more vacation time to wait around tomorrow, so they're coming late...hopefully the first time will work, so we don't have a dinner guest!

The (brand) new TivoHD is scheduled for delivery this friday. I'm going to set it up, upgrade the software, etc. then email the pairing info to my tech. He's going to have HQ send a hit to the cable card and if it takes (including encrypted and movie channels I subscribe to), we'll be done. If it doesn't take, he'll come back to the house.

The (brand) new TivoHD is scheduled for delivery this friday. I'm going to set it up, upgrade the software, etc. then email the pairing info to my tech. He's going to have HQ send a hit to the cable card and if it takes (including encrypted and movie channels I subscribe to), we'll be done. If it doesn't take, he'll come back to the house.

Well the new unit is installed. I've updated the software to current, downloaded the schedule info, and then installed the cable card. Signal strength varies between 93-100, depending on channel.

I emailed all of the pairing info to the tech, and now I'll wait for them to send a hit to the card. Fingers are crossed.

I emailed my tech late last night, and I haven't heard back from him yet that he called in the pairing info. So I'm assuming he hasn't done it yet.

I am getting digital channels including HD, but not all of them. The ones that are in an upper tier as well as HBO channels (both of which I subscribe to) are not coming in yet. Going to those channels simply results in the Cable Card Pairing Info screen to come up (is that normal?)

Still this is farther than I've gotten before. In the Conditional Access screen I'm getting VAL:? and AUTH: CAD, so I believe they haven't sent a signal to the cable card yet.

I am getting digital channels including HD, but not all of them. The ones that are in an upper tier as well as HBO channels (both of which I subscribe to) are not coming in yet. Going to those channels simply results in the Cable Card Pairing Info screen to come up (is that normal?)

That exact same situation happened to us when we first got VZ FIOS. The tech checked a few channels before leaving but when I started scrolling through them all, the higher-end HD channels were missing (including HBO, Showtime, etc). I think I just got a "Channel Unavailable" screen though.

In any case I had to call VZ and spend some time on the phone while they got things ironed out. Once they did whatever it is they did on their end, I rebooted TiVo and all was well.

So it sounds very promising. Perhaps the tech did do what he was supposed to do but it didn't "take"? I'd shoot him another e-mail or call the tech folks to see if they can resolve it.